Roulettes
by Felicity G. Silvers
Summary: This is really just a formality. He doesn't actually need to circle back like this, he's not orbiting around this, his life is not some spirograph that's fixed on him. Part of If and Only If series.


This is part of the If and Only If series. Please see my profile for read order and fics involved.

That out of the way, welcome back. Early post because GUYS GUYS I just wrote how Bifurcation (the long-form that will cover the Avengers getting together and the tesseract coming up soon) ends and eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Actually, I'm writing Bifurcation and know where it's going, which is equally awesome because I was rather worried that the end hadn't quite come into shape yet.

Ahem.

Math stuff: Roulettes are really cool. They are a family of curves, where one curve rolls along another fixed curve without slipping. I specifically had epicycloids in mind for this fic, but really they are all neat and I figured roulette is easier to pronounce than 'epicycloid.' You probably actually know some roulettes yourself-spirographs are those cool circle toys that you can put a pencil in to make a spiral on paper, en .wikipedia . wiki/ Spirograph (remove spaces), and they create two particular types of roulettes.

This fic is for Ordis, whose fic Drown is one of my favvies and who gives me the best Loki feels and cliff-hangers and is officially one of my favourite people.

* * *

**Roulettes**

Tony is 33 years old.

(If he is exact, and he should be, considering where he is, he is 33 years, 2 months, and 20 days old.)

(It is currently 8:34am, so he is even more technically 33 years, 2 months, 20 days, 5 hours and 20 minutes old.)

(Not that any of that matters.)

Tony doesn't actually _need_ to be here today. In fact, Tony is well and truly over what _this_ is. He's moved on. He's got Pepper (she can sometimes nearly keep up with him, even if she will never be able to design and build and create (_Jarvis_) with him). _This_ was hardly anything, a flash in the pan, and Tony does not _have_ to come here.

(He has missed this date once—he was in a desert cave hooked to a car battery that year.)

(It was the very first place he came while everyone was distracted by his announcement that Stark Industries would no longer make weapons.)

Tony doesn't need, want, or have to do this. He's _over_ this, and the only reason he is here is respect for the dead.

(This is where he rehearsed how to tell her about the palladium poisoning. This is the first place he spoke of it to anyone.)

He gets out of the car—rental, as not flashy as possible, and no one would believe Tony Stark is driving it—with an old Berkley hoodie on, ball cap, sunglasses pushed firmly on his nose. He is not hungover and he has not slept in nearly a day. Pepper would be furious; she will be furious because he does not have his phone, a tablet, or any way for anyone to get in touch with him and he left without a word of warning. He grabs the bouquet of sunflowers off the dash, closes the door, and starts to walk.

(Sunflower faces are a perfect example of Fibonacci spirals. _He_ was always rather fond of that particular sequence; sunflowers were his favourite flower because of it. They found a sunflower field one afternoon and Tony had nearly gotten lost in it, with all those broad brown creepy faces that looked like they were standing silent judgment. _He_ had laughed at Tony until Tony couldn't help grinning and laughing with him.)

(Not that Tony remembers that. He's over it.)

He stops at one of the graves.

(It was raining that day, fitting. _He_ would have counted how many times rain dripped off the rim of Tony's sunglasses, determined the exact angle the rain was falling, but he couldn't. Tony wouldn't have even been in the rain with sunglasses if not for him.)

He crouches down. There is a bit of dried up mistletoe; Baldr, current CEO of Odin & Sons, must have been by sometime in the last month. Tony carefully removes the dried up offering and places the bouquet of sunflowers in its place. He brushes away some leaves and dirt off the polished granite headstone, then clasps his hands and searches for words.

(This is really just a formality. He doesn't actually _need_ to circle back like this, he's _not_ orbiting around this, his life is not some spirograph that's fixed on _him_.)

"Hey, Loks." He pauses, clears his throat (must be getting sick). "Been a busy few months. You remember the palladium poisoning? Fixed that, created a new element. Meant to tell you sooner, but you know how it is—seem to just attract the crazies these days. Some guy named Vanko. Haven't named the element yet, can't really decide on anything. You'd just name it prime-ium or something else mathy. It's been pretty tempting, actually. I bet you would have figured out how to create it first."

He blinks back sudden wet in his eyes and swallows instead of saying 'I miss you.' (Allergies must be acting up.)

"Jarvis is doing good; had to tweak a little bit of his code in January. Nothing major, nothing to do with his personality or anything. Just needed to streamline a few processes, we didn't exactly design him to run the suits, you know? I swear he's getting sassier every year and I don't know if you put that in or if I did. Maybe we both did. Serves me right."

He makes sure the sunglasses are firmly set on his nose and he keeps talking. Talks about Vanko and Oscorp, talks about how Odin & Sons is doing, talks about a math conference he crashed and the panels he went to, talks about how the designs for the wide-scale arc reactors have been going. (He doesn't talk about Pepper. He never talks about Pepper here.)

Eventually, he stops talking and just crouches there, head bowed.

(He's not crying. His heart isn't aching and the tattoo on his shoulder isn't a brand of all he's missing.)

(He's _fine_. He's _over_ this.)

Eventually, he pushes his sunglasses up and scrubs his face with his sleeve. He brushes his fingertips over the engraved letters before he stands, pulling the sunglasses back down to hide his eyes.

"I'm over you. It's been 16 years." He says this every year, plus one each time. (Some years he almost believes it.)

He pauses, still staring down at the grave. He's not going to say it this year.

(Except he always says it.)

"X sub n-plus-one equals x sub n plus c."

He turns and starts to trudge back to his car, hands shoved deep in his pockets.

(He'll never be over this.)

He slows a little as he gets nearer the car. There's someone waiting there, looking down—big guy, three piece suit, blond hair tied back. Tony's steps falter for a few seconds before he scowls.

"Can I help you?" he asks. No one is meant to know about this place.

The guy looks up, storm blue eyes meeting Tony's despite the sunglasses. Tony stops walking.

"Stark," a voice that hasn't changed in sixteen years rumbles. "It has been a long time. I… would ask a favour of you."

"This is not funny," Tony says, calmly as he can. Thor is _dead_, dead as Loki, killed in some plane crash with his parents and half his extended family sixteen years ago come December. "At all."

The guy who looks and talks like Thor, who clearly knows where Loki's grave is and that Tony would be here today, just looks at him for a few moments.

"It still only takes fifteen pounds of pressure per square inch to break your neck, Stark."

Tony's stomach knots and his entire face stills.

(_Thor staring at Tony as the two stagger into Loki's place at sunrise, Tony grinning brightly under the piercing gaze._

"_It takes fifteen pounds of pressure per square inch to break your neck," the big guy finally says. Loki laughs as Thor moves past them and Tony suddenly realizes he just got the Loki-family equivalent of 'hurt my brother and I will hurt you' speech._)

"Get in the car," Tony says.

They ride in silence back to the suite that Tony is staying at (the one he wasn't going to need)(Tony spends a small fortune making sure this suite doesn't change, even if he doesn't stay here but once a year.). Tony can't stop glancing out of the corner of his eye at the very-clearly-probably-Thor. The Thor he remembers tended to smile easily and rarely looked bothered by anything except Loki. This probably-maybe-Thor doesn't look a day over twenty-five, looks like he doesn't smile at all.

"You died," Tony finally says once they're back at the suite, both sitting and glasses of scotch in hand. Possibly-Thor is holding his in both hands between his knees, leaned forward.

"I did," he acknowledges. "I have a great deal to tell you."

Tony nods. He keeps his face blank, drinks some scotch, and stares at maybe-Thor.

It's like the bottom falls out or up, the opposite of whatever happened that night he first met Loki's eyes, and Tony's in free fall. Thor (it _is_ Thor) talks steadily. It's shock that keeps his face still, that lets him put that mask on—shock and practice, because Tony is used to having his world turned upside down by now, by having what he expects not actually be the reality. Thor talks about gods and other realms, talks about dreaming up human lives that actually create human bodies. Thor talks about how the entire family was dreaming a life for Loki—yes, _that_ Loki, god of chaos and fire Loki—to recover in because something had happened and Loki's mind was broken by it. Tony's on his third glass by the time Thor finally finishes.

Tony starts with the insignificant.

"So Baldr is actually just some dreaming god."

"Yes. Baldr always dreams. There was an accident a long time ago and he has since then." Thor pauses, then adds, "You can ask him, if you wish. He knew and knows more than the rest of us about how this works. Says that it involves matrices and substitution of one thing for another. It's not something I am overly familiar with."

"Why tell me all this? Why show up now?" Tony's throat catches slightly. "Is he alive?"

(He blames the alcohol but he doesn't slow down drinking.)

"I am looking for him." Thor pauses and finally takes his first sip of the scotch. "You loved him, once. I do not know if you still do. And you are very clever, like he was as a human, as he _is_ as a god. I had hoped… but never mind that. I am searching and asking for aid because I cannot find him by myself; if there is any human that can find him, it is you."

"You hoped he would try to find me."

Thor's smile is mirthless and does not reach his eyes.

"He hasn't." (That _hurts_, twists like a knife deep in his chest; he's meant to be over Loki (_Loks, we're lost_).) "You didn't answer my question, though, whether he's alive or not."

"I have to believe that he is," Thor says simply.

"But you don't actually know."

Silence.

Tony pours himself a fourth glass. His hand is surprisingly steady.

(He thinks of sunflowers and how Loki insisted that pie should actually be called tau, of lazy summer afternoons and too short summer nights.)

(He is _over this_.)

"You remember all the stuff that happened while you were human. Is that something you all remember?"

(_Does Loki remember him_?)

"Usually, when we are well and dream of our own volition." Thor refills his own glass. "Loki was not well. How he perceived as a mortal was… not normal, even taking into account his perception usually. He was not meant to die when he did. He was not meant to wake if he died. He should not have been able to wake at all without Mother's aid." Thor scowls down at his drink. "Heimdal spoke with him just before he ran from Asgard; he says that Loki was lost, that he did not know what he was, that his soul was torn and bleeding. I do not know how much he remembers or how he remembers it.

"He may be dead, in which case all there is is to take his body home, but I cannot believe that. Will not believe that."

Tony says nothing.

"I would have your aid. I understand if you do not wish to give it. It has been years here and you have clearly had much happen." A pointed glance at the glimmer of the arc reactor's light through his clothing. "I do not know many humans that I can ask this of, Stark. The other realms, I know and can ask many, _have_ asked many, but here people only know me as the deceased son of a business man. Help me. _Please_."

Tony is over this.

Tony has Pepper.

"I'll keep an eye out," he tells Thor, because Thor was once a sort-of-friend. (Because Loki _might_ be alive.)

(_Might_.)

"Thank you," Thor says, relief evident on his features.

Thor shows Tony how to contact him and leaves.

He finishes the rest of the bottle of scotch and starts on another even though it's not quite noon.

(Poison green eyes staring back and everything fire and ice, birth and death, creation and destruction churning in one bottomless gaze. _Infinity_.)

(Half-lidded smile, open and easy, like all there is is Tony and Loki, Loki and Tony, Loki's fingers tracing over the equation still stinging fresh on Tony's skin.)

He is over this.

(Long healed ink is burning on his shoulder.)

He's got Pepper. She isn't _him_ but she's still _here, _even if she can't keep up with him all the time, can't create with him ("_Just a rather very intelligent system_" and the greatest work Tony's ever made). He realizes he's pacing, makes himself stop.

(There's so many parts (variables) of himself missing since Loki died and a tiny voice in the back of his mind has spent every single millisecond, nanosecond, picosecond praying and wishing and aching for Loki to still be _here_, and he knows in his heart that there never was and will never be anyone else for him.)

He shouts, hurling the bottle at the wall, and slumps down to the floor with his head in his hands. Sobs shake his shoulders as he leans against the island in the kitchen where 16 years, 2 months, 20 days, 2 hours, and 32 minutes ago Loki pushed everything aside and said

"Fractals."


End file.
